Doom's Break

by Christopher Rowley

  Rukkh looked her in the eye. As at their previous meeting, there wasn't a shadow of recognition of their old relationship to be seen there. Still, he knew that she spoke the truth. The Emperor would indeed want this wounded monkey seen to.

  "Right!" Rukkh saluted her crisply and spun around.

  "You, Peglek, and you, Muhub, get some others and help carry the wounded monkey to the imperial surgery. Improvise a stretcher. Two spears and two cloaks ought to do it, just like on the battlefield. If you're lucky and he survives, I'll recommend you get twenty lashes less than the others are gonna get."

  The men leaped into action. In short order, spears and cloaks were lashed together. They stepped forward and laid them on the ground beside the wounded one.

  The other mots were listening intently while Nuza explained what was happening. Some were plainly unhappy. They shot angry looks toward the men and held their swords and axes at the ready. But other men bent down and lifted the wounded Jelli onto the improvised stretcher. They lifted it, one at each corner, and bore it away toward the camp.

  Some of the monkeys cried out at this, but Nuza shouted to them in their own tongue and they quietened.

  Suddenly the men parted as if by a knife. Coming through were three new figures. Rukkh saw men snapping to attention and throwing up the imperial salute. Aeswiren was in the middle of the three.

  "At ease, Sergeant Rukkh," said the Emperor in a quiet voice that still carried enough for the men to hear. The Emperor knew who Rukkh was, which was enough to impress some.

  "Tell me, Sergeant," said the Emperor, drawing him aside slightly and speaking in a lower tone. "What happened here?"

  "As far as I've been able to ascertain, sir, some of our men came here to cut firewood. They took the wrong direction. Started cutting outside the area designated for us. These, er, allies came over to stop them, and it brewed up into a fight."

  "As simple as that, eh?" The Emperor was clearly angry.

  "I'm afraid so, Your Majesty. I haven't had time to find out who the hell got it wrong, but when I do, someone will pay."

  "Yes, I'm afraid they must. We can't have this, Sergeant. We just can't have it."

  They looked up to see they had been joined by yet another small group, this time five mots, all in that effective wicker armor they made. At their head was General Toshak himself.

  Aeswiren turned to Toshak and extended a hand. "General, my apologies for this mess. The men strayed over the line. I don't know how or why, but believe me, I intend to find out."

  Toshak took Aeswiren's hand. "They have taken the wounded mot, Jelli. Where are they taking him?"

  "To the surgery. It was thought that Filek Biswas could save him, if anyone could."

  Toshak nodded thoughtfully then issued a stream of orders to the mots on either side. Runners were dispatched at once, bearing messages.

  "I have acted to inform all units about this. It is the best way of stopping the spread of stupid rumors."

  Aeswiren thanked the gods that he had someone as sensible as Toshak as his ally in command of the native forces.

  "That is an excellent idea. I will do the same."

  —|—

  In his surgery, Filek Biswas was surprised by the sudden arrival of the wounded mot. He was also intrigued. As he pulled out the tools of his trade and swabbed them with alcohol to sterilize them, he wondered what he was going to find out about mots.

  Surgery was such an interesting exercise sometimes!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  For a day and a half they continued downstream, making good speed most of the time. Thru rowed as much as he could, with help from the chooks, and Iallia took her turn at the oars as well.

  After the sun set, they kept going as long as they dared. Thru worried about striking a snag or floating log, so eventually they tied up on the southern shore of the river. Thru was concerned that riders might still be pursuing them down the river road on the far side, so they kept a watch.

  Of course, they had nothing to eat, and they were very hungry. In the early morning the chooks foraged in the nearby woods and returned with some wild grapes and some plump beetles in their beaks.

  Iallia ate the grapes but spurned the beetles. Thru accepted both gladly. Dunni wept at times for his poor Pikka, and when he could, Thru sat by the crestfallen chook and did his best to comfort him. Thru also saw that Iallia did the same while Thru worked the oars. The bereaved rooster was a forlorn sight, hunched down in the bow of the boat, feathers ungroomed, comb deflated.

  They passed down a long reach of the river amid dense forest and reached the abandoned village of Groote Humly. They stopped briefly and foraged for scraps of food. They found some bushpod and some dried curd, and they ate this as they rowed on.

  In the afternoon, they endured a brief shower that drenched them and then left them floating in a thick mist. Thru noticed that the current's pace was slackening, and after a while, as the mist burned off, they found themselves drifting through a wild-water swamp.

  Humly water was the largest area of wilderness on the middle Dristen, ten miles of meanders, bogs, and pools where waterfowl in vast numbers lived and bred. The woods receded on either side and were replaced by huge stands of reeds and bullrushes. The clean smell of the river was replaced by the dank odor of the swamp, and, wherever trees grew, they were thickly festooned with the huge nests of ospreys, fish eagles, and herons.

  "If we get through this today, we'll get into the reach of the river above the Cleansdale. After that we'll be in the lower Dristen."

  "And then we'll be home," said Iallia happily.

  Thru said nothing to dampen her spirits. Whether they had homes to ever return to was still in doubt.

  Iallia took over the oars then, and Thru curled up to sleep in the back of the boat. In his exhausted state he slept longer than he should have, and when he awoke, he found that Iallia had lost the main channel and taken them off into a backwater.

  They turned around at once but were confronted by a swarm of small islands with no clear route to the main channel. They struggled through narrow, twisting channels, oxbows, and dead water. Before long, they managed to ground the boat on a snag in quicksand. It took the best part of an hour to free themselves and to work the boat back out of the dead water.

  By then the sun was halfway down the western sky. Thru took stock and then used its position to guide them back toward the main channel. Keeping their course to the east as much as possible, they wound their way through the reeds. Huge flocks of geese and ducks rose from the quiet backwaters as they pushed along. For an hour or more, they worked their way in and out of narrow, snaking streams, hidden beneath great stands of reeds and bullrushes, each time recoiling in frustration from another dead end, and then, at last, they found a wider channel that gave onto a lake. From that they found another channel that eventually rejoined the main river. With the sun sinking toward the treetops, they hurried west once more, having lost half a day in the wild water.

  Darkness was falling as they came around a bend and discerned a bridge across the river a mile downstream.

  "What village must this be?" wondered Thru, trying to recall where in the middle Dristen they were.

  The chooks had no idea, for they were from an upland village far to the east and had never ventured this far from home before. Iallia thought it must be Meadow Mill, and she pointed to a large building, visible by its square bulk against the sky on the southern side of the river.

  "That must be the mill."

  Most of the village was on the northern side, where the river road ran, and Thru recalled that he had found food in this village on his trek upriver to the mountains.

  If it was indeed Meadow Mill, they were close to the top of the Cleansdale. Past that they would enter the lower Dristen.

  As they drew closer, Thru studied the huddle of houses, dimly visible in the darkness. Not a light showed, nor could he detect any smoke. The inhabitants had yet to return.

  He kept the boa
t moving straight for the bridge, which had two arches and a central pillar of stone. He chose the western channel and let the current take them down the last stretch before it.

  The bulk of the mill rose up beside them, its waterwheel turning slowly, with moonlit spillage scattering down its side. Thru was so taken with this beauty that he didn't see the movement above them on the bridge. Suddenly Mukka screamed. Arrows flashed down into the boat and the water at their side.

  Thru looked up, saw the gleam of teeth, heard the hiss of arrows. The right-side oar was knocked from his hand and a shaft sprouted there instead. Without missing a beat, he took the other oar and poled the boat away from the central pillar and under the cover of the bridge.

  Mukka was hurt, and Chenk was crying in alarm. Iallia almost fell out of the boat when she stood up. Then a second boat appeared, swinging in from downstream, with men aboard and a faint gleam of steel in the dark.

  Thru ducked instinctively and felt the whisper of an arrow past his head. As he came back up he pulled the oar from the water and swung it from the hips and felt it slam home, knocking the archer in the other boat off his feet.

  A moment later, the two boats rammed into each other hard, and everyone still standing fell down.

  Thru pulled himself up. The chooks were crying, and Iallia was still struggling to right herself. He found the oar, seized it, and poled the boat toward the mill wheel. The men were cursing; one of them had fallen in and was splashing furiously.

  "The boat is sinking," said Iallia in alarm. A moment later, Thru felt the water rising to his ankles in the bottom of the boat.

  "Onto the mill wheel. Ride it to the top," he said.

  "The chooks?"

  "I don't know. Can you help them?"

  The boat banged into the mill wheel and began to spin away. Thru grabbed hold of one of the wheel's ribs and was hauled into the air. He moved hand over hand to the side of the wheel, and as it tilted up he swung a leg over onto one of the paddles. In another moment, he was borne to the top of the wheel, where he jumped off onto the gallery that ran around the mill house.

  The gallery overlooked the bridge. Two archers were standing there, aiming down into the boat. At that range, they couldn't miss. Thru didn't hesitate but hurled himself off the gallery directly at them. He heard a shout, and as he slammed into the nearest fellow they all went down in a heap.

  The impact was bone-jarring, but there was no time to waste trying to get his breath back. Somehow he got to his knees. One of the men had rolled over and was pushing himself up. The other had hold of Thru's shoulder. There was a flash of steel, and Thru twisted away just as the knife came down. He flung out a hand, felt the man's face under his palm, and pushed him away. The knife missed again.

  Thru got his feet under him. The other man was back up, drawing a short stabbing sword. They came together. Thru reacted with the kyo moves he had learned so well from Master Sassadzu at Highnoth. The sword missed his belly, but his fist snapped into the man's throat.

  The first man kicked Thru's legs out from under him, and he fell heavily. Rolling desperately, he avoided the stamping blow aimed at his throat. He started to get up, but the man caught him with a heavy kick to the ribs that knocked him over. He saw the knife in the man's hand and realized he might die here and all his efforts would have been in vain. Again he struggled up, but the man's boot quickly lashed out. Thru tried to grab it and twist the leg, but he was too slow. The man loomed over him. The knife swung down.

  Suddenly a big ball of white and yellow feathers cannoned into the back of the man's legs, throwing him off balance. Thru kicked upward, felt his foot connect, and the man fell. Two chooks hurled themselves on top of him, delivering hefty kicks with rooster claws. Iallia appeared as well, with the other man's sword in her hand.

  The men were down and not likely to get up soon. Thru took a bow and found it heavier than a mot bow but usable. He tore a quiver free from the man he'd punched in the throat.

  "Hurry," he said to the two roosters, who were helping the wounded Mukka get down from the mill house gallery. An arrow jutted up from her back between the shoulders. Thru was amazed that Mukka had managed to get up the mill wheel.

  "Mukka is hurt," said Chenk angrily.

  "How bad is it?" Thru bent down beside the wounded chook.

  Mukka winced but held her head up. "Pull out the arrow," she said, "and I will fight!"

  Thru grinned. "That's the spirit," he said. "Now, hold your breath for a moment. This will hurt." He took hold of the shaft and eased the arrowhead out of Mukka's back. She gave a single sharp cry and then was silent. A moment later, the arrow came free.

  "There," said Thru, breaking the shaft and hurling it away. "It did not go so deep."

  Mukka's sides were heaving, but she made no further sound.

  Thru examined the wound. There was a little flow of blood, but nothing life threatening. The arrowhead had not severed a major blood vessel.

  "We will treat the wound later, when we have more time."

  "More men are coming," said Iallia, pointing toward the village. Horsemen could be seen charging past the houses.

  "Into the woods," Thru called out as he headed past the mill to the dark mass of the trees.

  They ran, chooks in the lead, Thru at the rear, carrying the bow and an arrow in his hand and the quiver over his shoulder. Having a bow, even an unfamiliar one made by men, gave him renewed confidence. Let the riders come after him in these trees—he would make them pay.

  They emerged onto a narrow lane that ran between woodlots on one side and vegetable gardens on the other. The gardens were fenced and terraced down to the river's edge in a style that was common in the middle sections of most rivers in the Land.

  Thru urged them off the lane and into the woodlots. Progress was slower, but they were less likely to be seen by the pursuit.

  The darkness was complete, and they slowed even further as they worked their way through dense stands of young trees on woodlots that had been clear-cut in recent years. The big white and yellow birds went first, and Iallia and Thru followed.

  They had gone perhaps a mile when they heard the riders coming down the lane, horse hooves pounding, men calling encouragement to one another. Not far from the little band, someone struck a light, and a lantern was lit. Men were dismounting. Another party of men came down the lane.

  Thru clearly heard a commander say, "Find them: The Master wants them dead or alive."

  Thru understood that the enemy knew the information they carried was vital and was determined to prevent them from bringing it back to General Toshak.

  A second lantern was lit, then a third. More men pushed into the woodlots. Thru, Iallia, and the three chooks retreated deeper into the trees, away from the river. Ahead, Thru could sense the ground was rising toward the hills that bound the valley.

  The men came on, one group upstream of them, another downstream, both working into the woods with lanterns raised to guide themselves.

  Thru considered shooting the men holding the lanterns, but he held his fire since it would confirm their presence.

  They came to a shoulder-high fence of poles with another lane beyond it. The woodlots gave way to a strip of polder created where an old outlier of the swamp had once curled between the trees. The waterbrush had been harvested, so there was no cover.

  The fence was an obstacle for the chooks, who had to be helped over. Mukka in particular found it difficult. Just as Iallia and Thru were helping her across, they were spotted by some of the men in the woods.

  Thru vaulted over and sent the others hurrying down the road. He himself took aim at the man carrying the lantern. His first shaft went wide, but not by much. His second arrow struck home, and he was rewarded with a shriek and the sight of the lantern falling to the ground and going out.

  The other men were still coming, though, and Thru took to his heels down the rutted lane.

  The strip of polder continued for half a mile before giving way to woods once
more. Thru glanced back. Men were climbing over the fence. Then he saw a lantern emerge from the woodlot on the right farther down, ahead of the chooks. Men were climbing over there as well.

  "Into the polder!" Thru shouted.

  The chooks needed no further encouragement. They were already on their way. Iallia leaped down behind the chooks and ran after them.

  Thru strung an arrow, took aim, and let fly at the men firing at the chooks. The range was extreme but his shaft came down among them and caused them to halt and take shelter back behind the fence.

  With men coming up from behind, he couldn't stay where he was. He, too, was forced onto the polder. He crouched low, arrow nocked, knowing that the men were watching the fleeing chooks, still dimly visible in the dark.

  The men were being more cautious now. One of them had already paid for being overbold, and so they had no lantern. Thru heard them arguing over what to do.

  "One of them's got a bow. Hornsli's dead for sure."

  "Can't see a damn thing."

  "Over there!" came another voice. "Come on."

  The group of men lurched forward into the polder, and Thru rose up and sent an arrow into their midst. One of them screamed and stumbled coughing into the muck.

  The others turned toward the mot.

  "There's one! After him! Get his head!"

  Thru fired again but missed, and then he had to run. An arrow sang past his ear as he dodged through the waterbush stumps.

  "Kill him!" screamed a man from behind.

  Far ahead, bouncing through the rows, he could see the chooks and Iallia. Beyond them a darker mass in the general murk delineated the hedge at the far side of the polder. He increased his pace, splashing through the muck. But he could hear the men, close behind him, and they were gaining. Another arrow zipped past, too close for comfort.

  The chooks and Iallia reached the trees and disappeared. Thru concentrated on pushing himself the last few yards. He launched his body into the air, seeking to dive over the hedge and into the woods beyond.

  His stomach briefly scraped the top of the hedge. His leg caught, and he fell heavily on the other side.